


Protect

by shookethspeare



Series: Code July 2020 [1]
Category: Code Lyoko
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25111027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shookethspeare/pseuds/shookethspeare
Summary: This is my contribution for Code July 2020's Day 3 Prompt! The word was Protect, and who is better of a protector than Ulrich Stern? (That's right, no one.)If you're new to my work and would like to read a super gory Detective AU with 26-27 year old Lyoko Warriors, I highly recommend you check out Bad Moon Rising.Anyways, enjoy!
Series: Code July 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818721
Comments: 11
Kudos: 19





	Protect

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution for Code July 2020's Day 3 Prompt! The word was Protect, and who is better of a protector than Ulrich Stern? (That's right, no one.)
> 
> If you're new to my work and would like to read a super gory Detective AU with 26-27 year old Lyoko Warriors, I highly recommend you check out Bad Moon Rising. 
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

_**“Ulrich, hurry up! Odd’s only got fifteen life points left, if he gets devirtualized then Aelita’s on her own with XANA’s Monsters!”** _

Ulrich hunched forward, laying on speed as his legs carried him across the ice and towards the cluster of icebergs that hid his friends. 

“Almost there, Jeremie!” Ulrich panted. “Don’t worry, you know we’ll protect her!”

Protect. A seven letter word that Ulrich wished he wasn’t all too familiar with in every aspect of his life. He supposed it didn’t help that his father was a military man, an Oberstabsgefreiter in the German Navy, who ran as tight a ship at home as he had in the service.

In Ulrich’s mind, the term “Daddy’s Little Soldier” was too cliche; regardless of how perfectly it fit.

He slid to a halt behind Odd, deflecting a laser that had been heading straight for the boy’s back.

“Thanks, ‘Rich! ‘Bout time you showed up, I was going to take all of today’s kills for myself.”

The blond threw him a toothy grin before sending three arrows towards the blok across from him, landing true in the center of XANA’s eye. The blok twitched and staggered before exploding into chunks of digital carnage.

Upon first meeting, Ulrich hadn’t known how to feel about the eccentric boy; entirely clad in purple with a mess of blond hair he now permanently gelled in a safety-cone shape on his head. The pair were almost completely opposite in every single way: where Ulrich was stoic and moody, Odd was loud and brash; where Ulrich preferred solitude and quiet, Odd needed loud music and hours of conversation. Ulrich preferred cats, and Odd crashed into his life with Kiwi - a very loud, very ugly dog who shared his owner’s lack of boundaries. 

That very first XANA attack had allowed Odd’s magnanimous spirit to worm its way into Ulrich’s life regardless, and the brunet had become rather fond of him. Odd was the brother he never knew he needed.

But that was the painful thing about letting someone in, Ulrich mused, especially someone as special as Odd. Seeing them get hurt was like a punch to the gut, one that left you winded, anxious and disoriented. It wasn’t just watching Odd make a careless misstep on Lyoko, his body disintegrating into pixels and the digital carcass blinking twice before disappearing completely (although that never got easier to see in Ulrich’s mind). It was the constant threat that XANA held over them all, the idea that at any moment on earth the AI could pull a single string and send them careening over the fragile precipice between laughing on the courtyard bench to half-dead in a hospital bed. 

_“XANA’s created a deadly melody...one that sends you into a coma before your heart slows to a stop.”_

It had been so close. If they had gotten Aelita to that tower even a second later, Odd’s heart would have stopped beating, and the last thing Ulrich had said to him would’ve been a heartless quip about wishing Jeremie was his roommate rather than Odd.

Sometimes, especially after a particularly grueling XANA attack, Ulrich would lay awake at night counting the even snores from his roommate’s side of the room; making sure the boy was still alive, still breathing. 

_**“Oh no! The scyphozoa!”** _

Odd and Ulrich turned at the same time, eyes landing on the giant squid as it crept along the ice towards an utterly terrified Aelita.

A laser struck Odd square in the chest and the boy stumbled backwards, pixels flying from his body as the telltale sign of devirtualization started.

_**“And now the spectre’s back - Yumi’s handling him, but you need to end this now, Ulrich!”** _

The brunet sighed inwardly. Jeremie meant well, that much he knew, but some days he wondered if the computer genius could ever hack it one day on Lyoko. It was good and fine to shout orders at them from behind the safety of the supercomputer’s multi-screened user interface; he didn’t have to experience the sting of a laser or the way the air sucked out of your lungs in complete deflation moments before reappearing in the scanners. 

As much as Ulrich sometimes wished he could hate the bespectacled boy, he knew it was impossible. Jeremie’s completely oblivious nature was as endearing as it was frustrating, and Ulrich felt a sense of responsibility akin to the one shared between an elder and younger brother. If Ulrich was the elder brother, then Jeremie was the hapless younger one - often the target of XANA’s tricks in the same way a young prodigy would fall victim to a pack of school bullies. Not to mention that the boy-genius already fell victim to Kadic’s actual school bullies.

After profuse promises of hard work on Aelita’s elusive materialization, Ulrich had taken to checking in on Jeremie every morning before class; knowing full well he would find the boy slumped over his keyboard with a rivulet of drool making its way down his cheek. Aelita would shuffle in after with a similar intention, smiling gratefully as Ulrich gently shook the boy-genius awake and got him up for class.

With Jeremie’s head in the clouds as much as it was, getting him up in the mornings was a generally thankless and altruistic task; but Ulrich was content to be the silent helper in his close-friend’s life. 

However, it was always much appreciated when Aelita slipped Ulrich an extra croissant at lunch or brought a protein bar with her to history class for Ulrich when he spent his free period practicing soccer drills on the pitch. 

“Ulrich!” Aelita’s panicked screech roused him from his thoughts just as a laser struck his thigh. His legs buckled and he knelt, pulling his sword upwards to deflect a barrage of lasers on a path towards his face. 

One glance in her direction told him the scyphozoa had grabbed her, its greedy arms wrapping around her torso and lifting her higher and higher in the air. A pulsating hum, like waves lapping at sand, started up as the scyphozoa began stealing the girl’s memory. 

Ulrich had made the mistake, late one night after Aelita had run into his and Odd’s room after the throes of an especially disturbing nightmare, of asking what being caught by the scyphozoa was like. He had felt her tense up in her curled pose, head on Ulrich’s chest, breathing still hitched from the sobs that had wracked her body not ten minutes before. For a long time she didn’t respond, leaving Ulrich to mentally kick himself for being so insensitive in her time of distress; but the silence coaxed the smallest of voices to squeak out a reply. 

_“It’s like...everything goes black. All that’s left is this feeling of painful pins and needles before falling into a terrifying void. If I focus hard enough I can feel the ebb and flow as my memory rushes out of me in waves, but that only scares me more. And then, when you save me, it stops abruptly, and I fall. It’s like...it’s like that time I got the flu. I feel nauseous and achy all over, and I just want to sleep in a dark room because my head is pounding so much.”_

Her response had chilled him to his core. All this time she had been suffering so much at the hands of that creepy-crawly, keeping the pain to herself even as the nightmares plagued her in the quiet darkness of her room. 

After her terrifying confession, Ulrich made sure to tear apart the scyphozoa as soon as he laid eyes on it each mission; staying by her side until she disappeared into the safety of the tower, then keeping his door unlocked at night in case memories of the encounter sent her stumbling to his dorm. 

He threw his katana towards the scyphozoa’s tentacles, the spinning blade slicing through them like butter. The squid retreated from the prone girl, and Ulrich eyed it warily as he knelt next to her; a gentle hand on her shoulder. 

“You okay, Princess?”

She roused, a shaky hand drawing up to her temple as her eyes screwed tightly closed in pain. 

“Yes...thank you, Ulrich.”

_**“Aelita, get to the tower! Yumi’s hurt!”** _

Ulrich’s stomach twisted painfully and he pulled Aelita to her feet, making sure she was stable before they took off in a dead sprint towards the tower. 

Spectres weren’t something the Lyoko Warriors took lightly. XANA’s possession made humans stronger, faster, and angrier; with no moral code, fear, or empathy, the possessed became mindless killing machines with a single motive: get Aelita to the scyphozoa and kill anyone who gets in the way. That ‘anyone’ just so happened to be Ulrich, Odd, Yumi, or Jeremie. 

Being on XANA’s hitlist had become part of the job requirement. 

That being said, Ulrich wondered just how badly Yumi had been hurt. XANA attack injuries came on a spectrum of severity: anything from a bruise or a cut, to shattered bones, to a coma was fair game.

When it came to Yumi, and her wellbeing, Ulrich knew he was a goner. If XANA targeting the rest of the gang was like a punch to the gut, then XANA targeting her was like a knife; the anxiety he felt watching Odd, Jeremie, or Aelita get hurt would suddenly amplify ten-fold and he couldn’t breathe, god he couldn’t breathe…

Her presence was like a magnet, his eyes always picking her out in a crowd or darting to see her reaction when Jeremie held a team meeting or Odd said something stupid. When she allowed a genuine smile, carefree and unguarded, his heart skipped a beat; when she laughed that deep-chested, shoulder-shaking laugh that made the corners of her eyes crinkle with an open-mouthed grin, he couldn’t help but laugh with her. 

Sure, their relationship was fraught with jealousy. Yes, maybe Odd had been right in his assessment that it was toxic. That didn’t mean he wished any less that it was him facing off against the spectre rather than her. 

_**“Good job guys! I’m bringing you home.”** _

The blinding light of the scanner eased as the doors slid open, fresh air whooshing into the cabin. Ulrich drew in a shaky breath before clambering out and making his way to Aelita’s side in the elevator. Her delicate hand reached out, squeezing his wrist. If he hadn’t been paying attention, he might’ve missed the grateful smile that graced her lips before the elevator doors slid open to reveal the lab. 

Odd was kneeling next to Yumi, dabbing with a cotton pad at a gash on her forehead that matted down the surrounding hair with blood. Ulrich’s shoulders slumped in relief when he realized that that was the worst of her injuries and that Odd had only received a bruised jaw. 

“Well done, Ulrich. You saved the day.” Jeremie congratulated him from the computer chair. “Another mission well done. Ready for a return to the past?”

Ulrich glanced around at the other Lyoko Warriors. His pack. His tribe. His family. Another day had brought another XANA attack; yet again thwarted by the five of them, almost unscathed.

There was so much love there, in his heart, for the four misfits in front of him. Saved the day, huh? No congratulations needed; this was his job, his role. 

He shook himself from his sentiments, refusing to let his eyes mist up in front of them.

“‘Course. Let’s do it.”


End file.
